Does The American President Have Too Much Power

By Contributor Conrod Tucker

Donald Trump’s poor con­duct and abuse of pow­er as pres­i­dent of the USA over the last four years, have been a sore point for many Americans, espe­cial­ly those who expect him to dis­tin­guish him­self with the pres­tige of hold­ing such high office. But, afford­ing an indi­vid­ual with auto­crat­ic ambi­tions such as Donald Trump so much pow­er is dan­ger­ous to the demo­c­ra­t­ic ideals of the American peo­ple. As such, the archa­ic laws gov­ern­ing the pow­er of the pres­i­den­cy are long over­due for revision.

Since becom­ing the com­man­der and chief, Trump has tak­en full advan­tage of his unbri­dled pow­er and has ruled the coun­try like a dic­ta­tor. I know there will be detrac­tors with oppo­site views to my posi­tion on this top­ic, but the world has seen myr­i­ads of evi­dence in sup­port of my argu­ment. The most recent and clear­ly the most egre­gious exam­ple of abuse of pow­er was incit­ing his sup­port­ers to storm The Capitol to pre­vent con­gress from not cer­ti­fy­ing the 2020 elec­tions. This unfor­tu­nate sit­u­a­tion occurred because of unfound­ed alle­ga­tions and lies of vot­er fraud, which would have dis­en­fran­chised over 80 mil­lion peo­ple who vot­ed against him.

But let us back­track to a year ago when he caught try­ing to influ­ence the pres­i­dent of Ukraine to dis­cred­it Joe Biden because he knew then that Biden would like­ly be his oppo­nent in the 2020 Presidential Elections. The House of Representatives impeached him, and he was tried and acquit­ted by a par­ti­san Senate, which heard over­whelm­ing evi­dence that should have con­vict­ed him. And since his elec­tion, many alle­ga­tions ranged from rape to cam­paign financ­ing, and he has not been charged. What is frus­trat­ing is that nowhere in the US con­sti­tu­tion states that a sit­ting pres­i­dent can­not be charged. This idea is a long-stand­ing pol­i­cy of the Department of Justice (DOJ) that no con­sti­tu­tion­al schol­ar wants to chal­lenge. This pol­i­cy should be test­ed in court because there is no legal prece­dence cit­ed by the DOJ to enforce this rule.

A revi­sion of the pow­er giv­en to a sit­ting pres­i­dent would expose the fias­co that makes any­one hold­ing this office to feel like he is invin­ci­ble, and Trump has max­i­mized it with his auto­crat­ic ten­den­cies. It is clear that he believes he is above the law, acts like a king, and rules the US like a monar­chy. The oth­er thing that mys­ti­fies me is the belief that a sit­ting pres­i­dent can par­don him­self. And there are rumors that Trump is seri­ous­ly think­ing about par­don­ing not only him­self but his fam­i­ly too. If so, that sup­ports my argu­ment that the pres­i­dent of the United States has too much power.

In essence, the con­sti­tu­tion has gift­ed any­one hold­ing that office with so much pow­er that they can do any­thing and gets away with it. That is con­trary to the Constitution of the USA, which states no one is above the law. They should revise it to say no one is above the law, except a sit­ting pres­i­dent, it is true.

Recently, Trump par­doned Michael Flynn, Paul Manifort, Roger Stone, Charles Kushner et-al, all of whom are part of his inner cir­cle, and most of them hard­ly served any prison time for their con­duct, with Stone serv­ing no time in jail. There is no lim­it on how many peo­ple or the types of crimes that the pres­i­dent can­not issue a par­don. Unfortunately, there is no check and bal­ances on a sit­ting pres­i­dent, because he has full auton­o­my to do what­ev­er he pleas­es with hard­ly any repercussion.

Apart from the 25^th Amendment, impeach­ment or res­ig­na­tion, remov­ing the pres­i­dent is almost impos­si­ble. The US would like to see Trump do the right thing and resign, but there is no real pos­si­bil­i­ty of that due to his insa­tiable appetite for pow­er. Except for his acolytes, he is cog­nizant that most Americans want him gone, but he will cling to pow­er until he is force­ful­ly removed or until he reach­es the end of term on January 20. Now the Democrats are scram­bling to draft the Articles of Impeachment to him remove him, but good luck with that becom­ing a real­i­ty. With a par­ti­san Senate still head­ed by one of his syco­phants – Mitch McConnell, who already sound­ed the alarm that he would not have a hear­ing until January 19, one day before Trump’s term ends, so the pos­si­bil­i­ty of con­vict­ing and remov­ing him his nil. And you can for­get the 25^th Amendment because Vice President has failed to act even with the prod­ding of the Democrats and even after Trump puts him in harm’s way dur­ing the insurrection.

American’s fas­ci­na­tion with the con­sti­tu­tion some­times has blind­ed them. The 2^nd Amendment is an excel­lent exam­ple of fail­ing to revise archa­ic laws. Having the right to bear arms does not mean it is right to kills scores of peo­ple. We have seen many mass shoot­ings played out repeat­ed­ly in schools, shop­ping malls, movie the­atres, etc., and there is still no revi­sion of this law. The same thing applies here with the pow­er giv­en to a sit­ting pres­i­dent. The framers of the American Constitution had the right inten­tions when they wrote these laws, but they are long over­due for revi­sion. The elec­tion of Donald Trump has exposed the flaws with giv­ing one man too much power.

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